


icarus

by fiverivers



Series: hera [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Universe, F/M, Light Angst, Murphy Being an Asshole, Post 6x07, Reunions, the POWER of true love!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 19:49:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19363183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiverivers/pseuds/fiverivers
Summary: Josephine miscalculates.-“Clarke.” His voice cracks. “Come back to me.”It takes all of Josephine’s effort not to laugh in his face. Her worry evaporates. Bellamy’s a fool.





	icarus

**Author's Note:**

> This vaguely fits into the narrative I got going on with hera but I just wanted to close out that series so *finger guns*

Josephine whistles, long and low. It’s not something she recalls she’s ever been able to do in any of her previous hosts. It’s new and different—another reason for Josephine to keep this body. 

The hostility in the bar would suffocate a lesser being, but Josephine is a Prime. Across the room, the man who’d come with Bellamy in the morning glowers at her. _Nathan Miller_ she recalls from Clarke’s memories.

She gives a friendly wave. He looks like he wants to spit at her. “Could you be a doll and ask John to hurry up? I haven’t got all day.” She smiles, sickly sweet, tapping her blunt nails against the bar absentmindedly.

He doesn’t respond, still staring. His eyes focus on her tapping. “Oh, sorry. Is that annoying you?” She sucks air in through her teeth. “I just hate waiting. So, chop-chop, maybe?”

He still doesn’t respond, but he listens to her request, stalking up the stairs. Faintly, she hears him bark: “Murphy!”

John saunters down the stairs after a few minutes. “Good morning, _Jos_!” He slurs in her face, the overpowering smell of alcohol makes her wrinkle her nose. 

“A bit early for booze, don’t you think, John?”

He huffs out a laugh. “Everyone I love can’t even look at me. I’ll drink if I fucking want.” The alcohol has him more honest than usual. Good.

“Clarke’s still alive. In here.” She taps the side of her head. She’s not. Anymore, that is. Her father had destroyed Clarke’s consciousness immediately after Bellamy and Nathan had left.

But John doesn’t know that. She watches him for a reaction. Emotions flash across his face, too rapid-fire for her to decipher.

“Why are you telling me this?” He mostly manages detachment but she can detect a mild tremor in his voice.

“I’m testing you, John. I need to know if you’re built for this. For life as a God.” She thinks of Gabriel leaving. She remembers waking up to him gone. Her sadness and anger was replaced with apathy a long time ago. She thinks about Kaylee throwing two hundred years away for a null. “Tell me, John. Do you still want this life? Knowing your friend is here?"

“Yes,” he answers unflinchingly. Josephine is almost impressed, until he turns his head to the side and throws up. The self-loathing is pathetic, really.

“Atta boy. Welcome to godhood.” She handles him a crumpled napkin off the bar counter, thinking for a moment before continuing: “And if I tell your friends that she’s still here. That you know? Can you tell me you’ll have the same resolve?”

He doesn’t reply this time, still hunched over his vomit. “Please don’t.” His voice is quiet. So unlike the John she’s become familiar with over the last few days. His friends— _his family_ , Clarke’s memories correct, are a weakness. Good to know. Something to hold over him for the next half century.

Josephine doesn’t make any promises (not that she’s really inclined to keep them, anyway). She’s about to tell John just that when a voice cuts in.

“What are you doing here?” Bellamy’s standing at the bottom of the stairs, Nathan at his side.

“Leave him alone. Please.” John begs feebly.

Josephine remembers Bellamy’s terror and rage when he’d slammed her against the wall. His resignation and defeat when he’d accepted their treaty. His determination and quiet rage earlier in the day. He’s just so _intense_. It’s exciting.

Josephine smiles demurely. “Just having a chat with John.” She touches John’s neck lightly, and he winces like she burns. He looks at Bellamy, who doesn’t spare him a glance, his eyes trained on Josephine.

Nathan leans in to say something in Bellamy’s ear and John laughs, loud and mean. “Bellamy and Miller, the wonder duo back together.” John sounds more hurt than cruel. “Thought I was your family but you’re throwing that all away for a cannibal.”

Josephine cannot hold in her delighted laugh. From across the room she can see Nathan’s body tense and Bellamy finally looks at John. His gaze is cold. “Get him to bed, Miller.”

“Don’t fucking touch me, man.” John is too wasted to put up a real fight as Nathan drags him up the stairs.

“You really are a buzzkill. That was about to be a real good time.” Josephine makes her way to Bellamy.

“You’re not welcome here.” Bellamy’s face is carefully blank, but his eyes are searching her face for _something_.

For Clarke. He thinks she’s still here. This is new development. Yesterday, he’d accepted Clarke’s death (barely) and been incapable of looking directly at her without glassy, tearful eyes.

But his eyes are different now. Still tormented, still broken but _resolved_. The hope would be worrying if she hadn’t eliminated Clarke. Instead, Josephine sees it as another opportunity to flex her acting skills and to find out what he knows

Josephine can hear her father’s furious voice in the back of her head telling her not to toy with people’s feelings—the importance of benevolence but it’s faded and insignificant.

Josephine clutches her hair and falls forward into Bellamy’s chest. She shrieks, loud and high, partly collapsing into his arms. She looks up at Bellamy, does her best to sound disoriented. 

“Bellamy?”

She lowers her voice by an octave, watches the hope flourish in his eyes. He really is beautiful. He pulls her close. She can feel his heartbeat, wild and frantic, against her own chest.

“Clarke…?” He’s barely breathing.

She feels his beard under her fingertips. Close like this, she can count the freckles across his nose. Entranced, she presses her ear to his trembling chest; listens to his heart. Strong, slow, steady. 

It’s a shame she has to break it again.

She sighs, breathing him in for a long moment before pulling back. She touches his face gently, feels his beard under her fingertips. Pictures of an unfamiliar Bellamy (younger, brasher, louder, angrier) flicker through her mind.

“I told you, Bellamy.” She pauses, for dramatic flair, “Clarke’s dead.” She says softly, feigns empathy.

His face contorts in rage and he pushes her against the wall, his hands around her neck. She bares her neck, daring him to kill her. He doesn’t have it in her. Not while she’s wearing Clarke’s face.

“She’s not.” Bellamy hisses. “She’s stronger than you.” His voice is trembling.

“She’s strong, I’ll give her that.” Josephine agrees. “She was still up and kicking. But I took care of that.”

Horror and panic flood his expression and Josephine narrows her eyes. He didn’t have faith that Clarke still existed—he _knew_.

 _How?_  

Josephine cycles through her fight with Clarke. Finding her in the diner, where her movements are controlled. She pushed her out. She locked the door.

_Did she push her out? Did she lock the door?_

Panic bubbles up Josephine’s throat. She told Clarke other consciousnesses can be brought into a shared mind space. Those consciousnesses are fragments of the self. If Clarke was in Josephine’s mind space— _in the chip_ , she was protected during the EMP treatment. She still exists. Josephine’s heart skips a beat. She needs to go see her father. Now.

Bellamy’s grip is tight around her throat, a threat. “What do you mean?”

Josephine struggles to maintain her false bravado. “I melted her to mush. EMP. Like ALIE and Raven.” She motions to the faint marks on her neck and face where Russell had placed a dozen electrodes.

Bellamy’s not bending. He doesn’t believe her. There’s burning intensity in his gaze. She shouldn’t have come alone. If he locks her up until Abby and Raven get back—she might be done for.

“Clarke.” His voice cracks. “Come back to me.”

It takes all of Josephine’s effort not to laugh in his face. Her worry evaporates. Bellamy’s a fool.

“I don’t know how to _be_ without you.”

This time, Josephine does laugh. It doesn’t deter Bellamy. He presses his forehead to hers, whispers more soft, worthless words. It’s all white noise.

Josephine has something to say, clever and cruel, on the tip of her tongue but her throat is constricted. She can’t speak. She strains to hear him—realizes she can’t.

He touches her gently and all she can do is stare dumbly. His thumb brushing across her mouth, just under her nose. She glances down, his thumb is smeared black with her blood.

She looks back up at him. He’s triumphant. 

The last thing Josephine sees is Bellamy’s eyes. Desperate, hopeful, and bright.

**Author's Note:**

> This is absolutely not going to happen and I wrote the whole fic around the last few lines which have been bouncing around my head for a couple weeks.
> 
> The ending is really rushed but I just wanted to get it out before 6x08!
> 
> I'm also shit at tagging. My bad.


End file.
